CATHOLIC archdioceses throughout the country have faced mounting accusations that they ignored allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of their priests. Some of these allegations, including those in Boston and Florida, have proved to be true.
These systemic problems have placed the Catholic Church in America in the midst of a crisis as to its legitimacy. This crisis hits at core questions of the Church's ability to act as faithful and trustworthy stewards of its members. Its members should take affirmative steps and demand that their dioceses open their personnel procedures more than they have done up to this point.
These controversies have two layers to them. The first concerns the actual child molesters themselves - the priests and leaders who took advantage of the young boys and girls in their care. Such individuals have engaged in the kinds of actions that pervert and blaspheme the entire notion of a trustworthy "father figure."
The second layer, the recklessly poor personnel policies carried out by various parishes, exacerbates the first set of problems by allowing deviant individuals to continue their pattern of disgustingly aberrant behavior.
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The recent happenings in Boston reflect the poor policies that segments of the Church have followed. Generally, when a child accused a priest of engaging in some kind of sexual act, the Boston archdiocese attempted to handle the problem "in house." Lacking an explicit policy from the Vatican to report such accusations to civil authorities, the archdiocese would attempt to rehabilitate offenders. Once declared "cured" by Church psychiatrists, the priests would be reassigned to parishes that did not know of the priest's prior problems.
As an example of the effects of these policies, the Boston archdiocese has settled claims from 50 individuals against one particular priest, John Geoghan. Throughout the 1980s, members from at least three parishes complained of abuse from this individual. Apparently, not enough was done to respond to these accusations to protect future children. Mr. Geoghan is only one former church leader whose prior bad acts have surfaced.
A Roman Catholic bishop in Florida, Anthony O'Connell, recently resigned, admitting to 25-year old allegations that he sexually abused a child in his care. Amazingly, O'Connell originally assumed his position by replacing a bishop who stepped down due to similar allegations.
One of O'Connell's victims has made use of the RICO statute to allege that all American bishops have "conspired to keep abuse claims secret, often through hushed financial settlements with victims." Obviously, such charges likely are overblown. Not all bishops were complicit in these poor policies. Parishioners, however, should be prompted to take action to return some legitimacy to the Church.
People should not assume that a majority of priests or Church leaders have consciously engaged in bad acts. Instead, a number of dioceses from across the country have allowed bad actors to remain in powerful positions. They have allowed recidivist sexual predators to remain in contact with the very people they victimized in the past. It is clear that a number of leaders, including Boston archbishop Bernard Law, knew that the people they reassigned had serious sexual problems that could not simply be cured through conventional therapy.
To be fair, all archdioceses now have a zero tolerance policy with regard to sexually predatory behavior. The Boston diocese, in particular, has claimed that it has released information of past abusers. Unfortunately, nobody can know for certain that the list of released names is complete. The people who claim to have reformed their parishes are largely the same people who carried out the previous bad policies.
The Catholic Church is unique in that its doctrinal faith is linked to its corporate operation. The Church, as an entity, matters to everybody who claims the Catholic faith. The Church, as an entity, needs to respond to these revelations more effectively than it has to this point.
Those Church leaders who consciously reassigned those known to have sexual problems should undergo some form of public shaming and probably should resign their positions. These changes would lead to some turbulence, but it would send a signal that institutional problems would be met with institutional solutions.
The faithful Catholics who are rightfully disgusted by these behaviors and policies should ask their leaders about what those leaders knew. They should demand information about the priests into whose care they trust their children.
Ultimately, the Church will survive these storms of criticism. With the right changes, it will survive these changes without losing its members. The Church, to keep its members' trust, owes them some degree of healing action.
(Seth Wood's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at swood@cavalierdaily.com.)
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